Geotagging Imagery and Video

IsWHERE is a log of my thoughts, reflections, and news/blog links on the emergence of image and video geospatial tagging. On May5th this year, I opened a second blog to deal with more detailed aspects of tools for FalconView and TalonView can be found at RouteScout. Trends I want to try and follow are the various disruptions resulting from spatial smart-phones, how many GPS devices are out there, smart-cameras, and other related news. And yes, I have a business interest in all of this. My company Red Hen has been pioneering this sort of geomedia for more than a decade.

So beyond a personal blog, I also provide a link to IsWHERE a shareware tool created by Red Hen Systems to readily place geoJPEG or geotagged imagery and soon GEM full motion media kept on your own computer(s) into Google Earth/Map from your File Manager media selection. Works great for geotagged images from Nikon, Ricoh, Sony, iPHONE, Android and all geo-smartphones that can create geotagged images. IsWhere - read about it

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Monday, August 30, 2010

Sandy Bridge tests show Intel video beating dedicated GPUs

Intel's Sandy Bridge processor architecture has had a first real test that shows a rare upset in graphics. Living up to claims of much faster integrated graphics, a quad-core 3.1GHz Core i5 2400 successfully outran AMD's Radeon HD 5450 dedicated video card in a series of AnandTech gaming benchmarks. The feat is an achievement for Intel, whose current video is notorious for trailing well behind not just dedicated video but often AMD and NVIDIA integrated video as well.

Despite being a mid-range processor, the i5 2400 was also much faster than its existing equivalents. It's about 15 to 20 percent faster than an existing 2.8GHz Core i5 and in many tests comes second only to the six-core i7 980X, which not only has the extra parallel processing but a higher 3.33GHz clock speed.Intel is due to push out the first Sandy Bridge-based desktop processors towards the end of the year and will focus mostly on the middle and upper-middle range, culminating in a 3.4GHz Core i7 2600. Notebook equivalents aren't due until early 2011 as they're waiting on Intel's Huron River platform.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Garmin issued a voluntary recall for about 1.25 million nüvi navigation devices on Wednesday. The request was due to the potential to catch fires, which is the result of the combination of a battery manufactured by a third party and a specific circuit board design. Nearly 800,000 of the affected units were sold in the US, and may include nüvi 200W, 250W, 260W and nüvi 700-series models...

QStarz finally comes out with a real time GPS tracking device. It is called QTracker and is still in sample phase. But we’re hoping we’ll get our own sample pretty soon. The idea is you put a SIM card (pre-paid recommended) in this device and dial this number from your personal cell phone and receive a text message back with a link to Google Maps. Brilliant! You can get moving alerts that can be sent up to three numbers. And it even texts you back when the battery is running low. The only thing you have to worry about is to find a SIM card that doesn’t charge you monthly fees for being idle and doesn’t expire.

This will potentially work in any country provided you plug in a SIM card that works where ever you are.

QStarz QTracker uses an MTK II GPS module which is capable of tracking 66 satellites at once. GSM frequencies it runs on are 850/900/1800/1900Mhz. It charges via mini USB in about 3 hours but the spec sheet does not mention how long it lasts. We’re hoping this real time GPS tracking device has an auto power off so it doesn’t waste batteries when your asset is parked somewhere for long periods of time.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

When Google Navigation hit the scene, it sounded the death knell for paid GPS on Android, so you can imagine the doom and gloom at Vlingo HQ last week when Google released the similar Voice Actions for free. As it turns out, however, Vlingo's not going to give up that easily; Vlingo for Android, once a $10 download, is now free as well. In a surprisingly gracious blog post that genuinely congratulates Google on the accomplishment, CEO Dave Grannan explains that he wants Android users to be able to freely compare the services as Vlingo adds features further down the road, and makes one valid point in his firm's favor -- you can try Vlingo now if you've got Android 2.0 or above, but Google's service only runs on Froyo. Interestingly enough, Vlingo on Android was the only version that actually charged; on Nokia, Blackberry and Windows Mobile, however, you could purchase a "Plus" license. Perhaps the company's not quite as generous as we thought, but there's still no arguing with a free voice command service that also reads your email aloud -- go ahead and give it a try.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

March 31, 2009

One of Google Earth's speed features also has the benefit of enabling the application's use when Internet is not available. The key is the Google Earth cache file which stores imagery and other data locally on your hard drive. This speeds up your experience even when you have broadband Internet, but it also is the secret to offline GE use.

By using the GE cache, you can still use most of Google Earth's features while on an African Safari, while driving your car, while boating offshore, or just camping on a mountain. This includes the aerial/satellite imagery, the 3D terrain, and more. And, the iPhone Google Earthapp has this feature as well. If you anticipate taking your computer (or iPhone) somewhere where you won't have an Internet connection, you can still use GE. Or you can use it for doing a demonstration somewhere without an Internet connection. You will need to do a little preparation first.

First, go to the menu item Tools->Options and select the "Cache" tab. You will not need to change the memory cache for viewing the cache (there is a trick for storing the cache with this setting - see below). The memory cache is set automatically based on your system's memory. You can make the disk cache size as large as 2000 MB (i.e. 2 Gigabytes). This will give you more data to work with. Then, you need to move to the area you want data for and zoom into that area. The most recent things you have looked at will be what's in your cache. It's important you zoom to the closest view you think you'll use. Turn on other layers for information you want cached (for example, 'Terrain', 'Roads' and 'Borders' - the more you select, the faster the cache wil fill). Also, make sure you save any KML files you might want to use in files on the same computer.

The more data you cache, the sooner the cache will fill, so be cautious. If you're going on a long trip, cache in high resolution imagery just the areas where you plan to use GE for close viewing. Avoid turning other layers if you only need imagery. It can be a pain to move around and capture an area of imagery at full high resolution and load up your cache properly. FreeGeographyTools has written some nice tutorials for some free tools for loading your GE cache in a more automated fashion - see here, here, here, and here. There is also a way you can save the cache files to extend the amount of area you can store (see this forum thread).

Keir Clarke points to this interesting infographic by Bill Rankin that plots the Earth’s population by latitude and longitude. A certain amount of this has to do with available land area — i.e., where the continents are. (I’ve taken the liberty of rearranging the graphic to go wide rather than tall.)

Last quarter we reported on some pretty stellar growth numbers for Android in the global smartphone marketplace. Back then, Google's OS had a 9.6 percent slice of the pie, but today that's ballooned to a robust 17.2 percent, meaning that in terms of end-user sales over the last three months, Android has nearly matched RIM's BlackBerry sales. That's quite the feat when you consider that a year ago the latter was shifting ten times more units than the former. This fast pace of growth has narrowed down Symbian's lead at the top, in spite ofNokia's favorite OS actually shipping on more phones this year, while the big loser of the quarter has to be Windows Mobile, which contracted both in terms of market share and actual shipments.

Overall, smartphone sales were up by 50 percent year-on-year, according to both Gartner and IDC, while Gartner adds that mobile devices as a whole grew at a tamer 13.3 percent rate. In terms of phone manufacturers' global share, Nokia and Samsung have held on to their top positions, LG, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have experienced some uncomfortable shrinkage, and HTC, RIM and Apple have capitalized to expand their portions. Looking over to IDC's smartphone share data shows, again, that all smartphone makers are growing remarkably well, but it does highlight HTC (129 percent) and Samsung (173 percent) as really improving their presence in the sector. The reason? Android, Android, Android.